Crime Magazine - Gary Boyntonhttp://www.crimemagazine.com/category/authors/gary-boynton
Gary Boynton is a true-crime writer, researcher and teacher, living in Seattle. He has a B.A. in abnormal psychology from the University of Puget Sound, and has completed numerous classes in police science, criminal investigation, criminology and forensics. He has worked as a probation and parole officer, private investigator and paralegal. After a year of law school, he completed the Nonfiction Writer's Program at the University of Washington
Gary has had more than a dozen articles, including cover stories, published in Detective Files, True Police Cases, Detective Dragnet, Headquarters Detective, Startling Detective and Detective Cases Magazines.
In 1998, he assisted noted crime author Gregg Olsen in researching If Loving You is Wrong: The Shocking True Story of Mary Kay Letourneau, the schoolteacher imprisoned for her sexual involvement with one of her teenage students. Crime author Ann Rule called the book " wonderfully researched…A must read for both true-crime aficionados and students of abnormal psychology."
At Discover U in Seattle and at two national Police Writers Association conferences, Gary has taught "Making Crime Pay: How to Research, Write and Sell True Crime Stories."
Gary's chapters, "Ted Bundy: The Serial Killer Next Door" grace the covers of Famous American Crimes and Trials, and Crimes and Trials of the Century, both from Praeger Publishers. He is currently looking for a new true-crime project. His email is: gboynton364@aol.com
enToo Many Hit Menhttp://www.crimemagazine.com/too-many-hit-men-0
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://crimemagazine.com/images/RV Park Bothel.jpg" alt="RV Park Bothel" height="250" /></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Bothell's Lake Pleasant RV Park <br /></span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">February 5, 1997 would have been Steve Ver Woert's 44<sup>th</sup> birthday, but he didn't make it to work on time that day at his job at a cellular phone company in Redmond, Wash., home to software giant Microsoft and many other high-tech firms. When the usually reliable Ver Woert still hadn't made it to work by midday, a co-worker was sent to find out why. When she arrived at Ver Woert's fifth-wheel-type trailer in nearby Bothell's Lake Pleasant RV Park, she found blood just outside the front door and called the Bothell police. <br /></span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">by <a href="/taxonomy/term/26"> Gary Boynton </a></span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">P</span>atrol Officers Lawson and Seuberlich responded to the call and entered the stylish trailer through its unlocked front door. After passing through the kitchen, they found Ver Woert's body lying facedown in a pool of blood in the living room. They checked to make sure that he was dead, then carefully left the trailer, so as not to disturb any possible evidence, before calling in to report what they had found.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">Bothell Police Sergeant D.C. Nielsen arrived at the scene shortly. Paramedics soon joined him. They confirmed that the victim, who appeared to have been stabbed in the back and then to have had his throat cut, was indeed dead.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">Two Bothell detectives, Ed Hopkins and Denise Langford, were next to arrive, followed by Det. Olsen, who would process the crime scene along with a team from the Washington State Patrol Crime Lab. Dan Christman, a blood-spatter specialist from the Snohomish County Medical Examiner's Office, and Dr. Eric Kiesel, the medical examiner, also came to examine the body.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">The investigators noted that an exercise bike had been knocked over near the body and several boxes appeared to have been thrown around, both indicating a possible struggle. A Bible lay open on a nearby table.</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">Det. Olsen and the forensics team processed the inside of the trailer, searching for fingerprints, blood, hair, fibers, and blood stains. Anything with blood on it was taken so that a possible DNA match could be made. The processing of the crime scene lasted until 4 a.m.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">Dets. Langford and Hopkins interviewed Ver Woert's neighbors, friends, and co-workers. According to everyone they talked to, the victim was very nice; the worst thing that anyone said about him was that he gave too much money to religious groups.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">The detectives learned that Ver Woert had moved to the area from Arizona a few months earlier. At work, where he was a special projects manager, he had already become one of the most well liked people at the company. According to his co-workers, he was somewhat of a genius in cellular phone technology, and he was mentoring several fellow employees. He was also dating an employee of the company who worked at another branch. When police contacted her, she told them of a strange experience she'd had the night before his murder. She had received a pager message to call Ver Woert and, after a bit of high-tech phone tag, she ended up getting a voice-mail message with Ver Woert's voice and that of another man in the background. She wasn't alarmed, but thought it odd enough that she played it for a friend before erasing it. When she tried to call Ver Woert again later that evening, she got no answer. The detectives believed he was killed sometime between the two calls.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">None of Ver Woert's neighbors at the RV park reported seeing or hearing anything unusual on the night of the murder; nor did they recall seeing anyone visit Ver Woert.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">With no suspects and no motive, Dets. Hopkins and Langford expanded their investigation to the Phoenix area, hoping that they might come up with something to explain why such a well-regarded individual had been so brutally slain.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">Hopkins and Langford met first with officials of the Mesa Police Department, who pledged their cooperation and support in the investigation. Mesa Det. Tom Denning was assigned to assist the Bothell detectives.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">The detectives began by interviewing some of Ver Woert's family and friends. All of them, including his ex-wife who still lived in the area with their 11-year-old son, confirmed the positive things that had been said about the victim by his associates in the Seattle area. According to his ex-wife, Ver Woert was "a very nonviolent human being, who was a devoted father."</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">Friends and family did, however, mention that Ver Woert had been married briefly once before and that his first ex-wife, Marty Malone, continued to pester him for money. According to Ver Woert's other ex-wife, Malone was "very adversarial, very vindictive, and often angry."</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">When the detectives arrived at Malone's home in Scottsdale, they knocked on the front door and were greeted by a large, decidedly unattractive woman wearing a skimpy T-shirt. Upon learning that Hopkins was a detective from Bothell, Wash., Malone said she only knew one person up there, her "good friend and ex-husband, Steve Ver Woert." She told the detectives that she was in Las Vegas at the time of the killing, without inquiring as to the exact date and time of the murder. Malone commented that "this was bad timing." She was unable to provide a location where she had stayed in Las Vegas, but claimed that she had passed out business cards at banks, casinos, and hotels in the area. When pressed, she could not provide any specific locations where she had done so. She finally claimed that she had picked up two men in a casino and did not remember where they had stayed.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">Later in the interview, Malone mentioned that she had Ver Woert's original will in her possession and she asked about how probate worked in the State of Washington. In the will, Malone was named as beneficiary of the entire estate.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">The detectives noted that Malone showed no emotion during the interview, but were struck by her inordinately friendly manner, especially toward Det. Hopkins.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">Hopkins and Langford returned to Bothell later that day. Malone called Hopkins around 9 that evening, and inquired about her ex-husband's death certificate, mentioning the will three times during the 10-minute conversation. She also mentioned that she had two life- insurance policies on Ver Woert totaling $150,000, and that she maintained a separate checking account for payment of those policies.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">Hopkins soon returned to the Phoenix area. He learned from a credit card check that</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">Malone's 1996 Nissan Pathfinder had been serviced at a car dealership in Scottsdale on Feb. 3, 1997, at which time its odometer showed 10,115 miles. According to police interviews with staff at the dealership, Malone had told them she "was going on a trip to Montana, to collect money owed to her by a former business associate." The staff at the car dealer also recalled seeing several suitcases in the Pathfinder.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">The vehicle was serviced again on Feb. 13. After arranging to have Malone brought in to be fingerprinted, detectives went to the dealership and checked its mileage. The odometer now showed 13,226 miles. The increase in mileage was consistent with a trip to Washington.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">At this point in the investigation, Hopkins began having regular contacts with Malone, who took him out for drinks and meals. According to the detective, she "appeared to be behaving in a romantically or sexually suggestive manner." In order to maintain her confidence, Hopkins pretended that he was unhappy at the Bothell Police Department and wanted to move to the Phoenix area, where he said he could work for the Mesa Police Department. He said Malone seemed very interested in the idea.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">At a subsequent meeting, Hopkins told Malone that he was definitely moving to Arizona and asked her for $5,000 in moving expenses, which she agreed to pay him.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">The next day, Hopkins drove Malone to a secluded spot in a nearby parking lot in Scottsdale. Unknown to Malone, her conversation with Hopkins was being both audio and video recorded by a Mesa Police Department surveillance team. (In Arizona, such court-ordered recordings require the consent of only one party, in this case Hopkins.)</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">In the parking lot, Hopkins told Malone that he was no longer interested in investigating Ver Woert's death and asked her to give him some of the insurance money. Malone then told the detective that she had planned her ex-husband's murder and had agreed to pay a friend of hers, Jonathan Craig Curtis, $25,000 for murdering Ver Woert. She said that she and Curtis drove together to Bothell in her Pathfinder and that she waited in the vehicle outside a tavern while Curtis went to Ver Woert's trailer.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">Malone said that after the murder, she and Curtis drove to Ellensburg, in central Washington, where they discarded Curtis's bloody clothing in a garbage bin at a fast-food outlet.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">During the tape-recorded conversation, Malone also offered Hopkins $50,000 to kill Curtis, and said she would also give him the $25,000 she had promised Curtis.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">Malone was arrested in the parking lot. At first, she tried being deceptive and denied what she had said on the tapes. Then, she called for a lawyer.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">The detectives now turned their attention to the alleged hit-man, Curtis. They went to his place of employment, a construction firm. Curtis's employers were shocked to hear that he was involved in a murder investigation. They depicted him as a good, dependable worker. They did verify that Curtis took time off during the time period when he allegedly drove to Washington with Malone to kill Ver Woert. He had told his employers that he was going to Spokane to visit his daughter.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">Others who knew Curtis painted a different portrait of him. They said that he was boastful and pushy.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">Curtis, a balding, medium-sized man, who looked older than his 45 years, was arrested while stopping for coffee at a convenience store on his way to work. He said nothing about the case and immediately called for a lawyer.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">The Maricopa County Attorney's Office and Mesa City Police Department decided not to prosecute Malone for conspiracy to commit murder for her efforts to get Det. Hopkins to kill Curtis. They felt that it would have been a much lesser charge than the one facing her in Washington.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">Neither Malone nor Curtis fought extradition. On the plane ride back to Washington, Curtis conversed with the Bothell detectives who had been sent to escort him. He talked about hunting in his native Montana and bragged about once shooting an elk while sitting on his front porch.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">Curtis told one of the escorting officers that he couldn't believe that Malone had tried to have him killed. When the officer mentioned that detectives had found out about a pull-tab connecting Curtis to a tavern near where Ver Woert was killed, Curtis put his head down and almost started to cry.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">Upon their return to Washington, Malone and Curtis were booked into the Snohomish County Jail in Everett. Two days later, they were formally charged with aggravated first-degree murder in the death of Steven Ver Woert. They both entered pleas of not guilty.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">Although investigators knew that both suspects were involved in the murder, they were not yet sure which of them had actually done the killing. In her tape-recorded conversation with Hopkins, Malone maintained that she had stayed behind in her car outside a nearby tavern while Curtis killed Ver Woert. Curtis, however, said that their roles were reversed.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">Detectives went to the Bigfoot Tavern, where each of the suspects claimed to have stayed in Malone's Pathfinder while the other was committing murder. They confirmed that Curtis had been there, learning that he had used his driver's license as ID to claim winnings from a pull-tab. No one at the bar could clearly recall seeing Curtis there the night of the murder. Several people did pick Malone out of a photomontage as a woman who'd been hanging out at the Bigfoot that night.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">Curtis was given a polygraph examination on his version of the crime. He flunked it.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">Curtis's small, ramshackle trailer in Phoenix was searched. A number of knives were found, some of which were of the type used on Ver Woert, but none had any blood on them, nor could they otherwise be matched to the crime.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">Detectives also learned about Malone and Curtis by talking to people who knew them. They learned that the two of them had met in a Phoenix area bar a couple of years earlier and that they had often played pool together since then. Malone lived in a house in Scottsdale, with one female and two male roommates, each of whom she had met in local bars. A search of her house resulted in the seizure of copies of the life-insurance policies she had taken out on Ver Woert.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">According to family and friends, Malone loved to throw parties, especially on birthdays. Investigators wondered if it was more than mere coincidence that Ver Woert was murdered on the eve of his 44<sup>th</sup> birthday.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">It was also learned that Malone had been married twice before. Both of her earlier husbands had died quite young of heart attacks and had been quickly cremated. Foul play could not be proven in either case, but in light of her current predicament, investigators could not help but have their suspicions.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">With the photo line-up and Curtis's failed polygraph examination now confirming Malone's contention that Curtis had actually committed the murder while she waited outside the Bigfoot Tavern, prosecutors offered her a plea bargain. The offer was, however, contingent upon her agreeing to testify against Curtis, and to her passing a polygraph examination on her version of the crime.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">After a long, arduous debriefing by prosecutors, Malone passed the polygraph test and agreed to testify against Curtis. In exchange for her testimony, she was allowed to plead guilty to a reduced charge of first-degree murder, thereby avoiding the mandatory sentence of life in prison or death that came with the original charge.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">Curtis did not take this turn of events lightly. In a handwritten note that was later turned over to authorities, he tried to get a fellow inmate to provide a phony alibi for him. The inmate, a former bounty hunter, also told authorities that Curtis offered him $20,000 if he would arrange to have Malone killed by a drug overdose in the women's jail. Instead, the inmate agreed to testify against Curtis.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">With the aid of bloodhounds, the Bothell police sifted through 500 tons of garbage in a landfill near Ellensburg, looking for the bloody clothing that Malone said she and Curtis had dumped at a fast-food restaurant in that area. Eight or nine items were eventually seized, but lab tests failed to link any of them to either Curtis or Ver Woert.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">Lab tests on the many items taken from Ver Woert's trailer failed to find any link to Curtis or Malone. The case against Curtis would have to be made in other ways.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">Jury selection began on Dec. 15, 1997, and opening statements were made the next day. Chief Criminal Deputy Jim Townsend outlined how Malone had hired Curtis to kill her Ver Woert and then tried to hire Det. Hopkins to kill Curtis. Townsend also revealed, for the first time, how Curtis had tried to hire a fellow inmate to kill Malone.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">"This case is about greed, stupidity and senseless violence," Townsend told the jury.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">Curtis's defense attorney, Jett Whitmer, agreed, but added that it was also about an innocent man being set up by a ruthless woman who manipulated police and prosecutors. Malone set Curtis up to take the fall for a killing she actually committed, Whitmer said. He added that authorities had bought into the story even though "not one speck" of physical evidence linked Curtis to Ver Woert. Whitmer also questioned the motivation of the inmate for testifying against Curtis, noting that both the inmate and Malone had received deals from prosecutors.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">Whitmer told the jury, "You must decide what you believe."</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">Townsend and his deputy, Ed Stemler, presented a parade of witnesses to set the stage for their star witness, Malone. Det. Hopkins told the jury how he had played to Malone's prejudices and gained her confidence. He said he had acted nervous, as if he really had something at stake in their deal.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">Townsend, a 20-year veteran of the prosecutor's office, handled the direct examination of Malone, whom he considered the most bizarre person he'd ever encountered. He carefully took her through the planning and execution of her ex-husband's murder. She stood by her story that she and Curtis had gone together to the Bigfoot Tavern, but that she had stayed in her car while Curtis left to kill Ver Woert.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">On cross-examination, Whitmer tried but failed to get Malone to say that she committed the murder, while his client, Curtis, had stayed behind</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">The prosecutors then played the 45-minute tape of Malone's confession to Hopkins. Jurors heard Malone tell the detective how she had hired Curtis to kill Ver Woert and how the plot had been carried out. They also heard her ask Hopkins to kill Curtis, offering him $50,000 and a motorcycle.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">The prosecution then called the inmate, who testified that Curtis had tried to hire him to arrange a drug overdose in the women's jail to kill Malone.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">Curtis took the stand in his own defense. Under questioning by his attorney, he admitted to being a liar and a braggart, but denied killing Ver Woert. He claimed that Malone had hired him as a driver and that he was asleep in her car outside the Bigfoot Tavern when she left to do whatever "business" she had come to do.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">In his summation, defense attorney Whitmer again attacked the credibility of the two main witnesses against Curtis, Malone and the inmate, saying that both were only out to cut themselves sentencing deals. Whitmer also questioned why Curtis would kill someone with a knife when he took a gun on the trip, why he hadn't tried to establish an out-of-state alibi as Malone had, and why he would give his name and social security number for the pull-tab winnings if he were the careful killer whom prosecutors had described. After again pointing out the lack of any physical evidence linking his client to the murder, Whitmer accused prosecutors of developing "tunnel vision" and refusing to investigate whether the evidence implicated Malone as the killer. He closed by asking why Malone would have accompanied Curtis to Washington if she had already arranged the hit.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">In his summation, Stemler said Malone wasn't likable but she was believable. He pointed out that she had admitted to Hopkins that she was "guilty as hell" in Ver Woert's death, hardly the words of a woman plotting to escape prosecution.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">Stemler said that Malone accompanied Curtis to Washington to make sure the job was done right. Stemler said the reason Curtis used a knife was because a gunshot would have drawn neighbors to the scene. The prosecutor also revealed that the informant who testified that Curtis tried to buy an alibi knew one piece of evidence detectives had withheld from the public, that Ver Woert's throat had been slashed.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">Stemler concluded his closing remarks by reminding the jury about the strange phone call that Ver Woert's girlfriend got right before his death. "There was a man inside the trailer that night," Stemler said.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">After deliberating for parts of two days, the jury found Curtis guilty of aggravated first-degree murder.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">As guards led Curtis down the hallway to the Snohomish County Jail, Det. Hopkins shouted, "Enjoy your stay, Mr. Curtis."</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">"Go to hell," responded the convicted hit man, displaying emotion for the first time since the reading of the verdict.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">At her sentencing hearing, Malone, now 44, blamed alcohol and hurt feelings about their failed marriage for her decision to hire a hit man to kill her ex-husband. She stood before Snohomish County Superior Court Judge Joseph Thibodeau and told how the idea of having Ver Woert killed came to her as she read a sign in a bar. The sign proclaimed that some people are alive only because it is against the law to kill them.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">Malone claimed that she was drinking heavily at the time, and continued to do so right until she traveled with Curtis from Arizona to Bothell. "That's how it started and how it ended, in a fog of alcohol," she told the court.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">Prosecutors maintained that money was her motivation. Chief Criminal Deputy Jim Townsend called the murder of Ver Woert "a very evil crime." Townsend said "the only motive that can be found in this situation was pure greed."</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">Malone was sentenced to 23 years in prison, which prosecutors had agreed to as part of her plea bargain. Curtis received a sentence of life without the possibility of parole.</span></p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-5 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Topics:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/topics/murder" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Murder</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-3 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Authors:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/authors/gary-boynton" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Gary Boynton</a></div></div></div>Wed, 14 Oct 2009 08:08:15 +0000admin201 at http://www.crimemagazine.comhttp://www.crimemagazine.com/too-many-hit-men-0#commentsGothic Murdershttp://www.crimemagazine.com/gothic-murders-0
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><table style="width: 300px;" align="center" border="0" cellpadding="3"><tbody><tr><td><img style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" src="http://crimemagazine.com/images/Alex-Baranyi.jpg" alt="Alex Baranyi" height="154" width="150" /></td>
<td>
<p style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://crimemagazine.com/images/David-Anderson.jpg" alt="David Anderson" height="155" width="150" /></p>
</td>
</tr><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Alex Baranyi Jr.</span></td>
<td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">David Anderson</span></td>
</tr></tbody></table><p style="text-align: center;"><em><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">O</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">n Jan. 4, 1997, two boys were playing in a park in Bellevue, Wash., an upscale suburb east of Seattle, when they spotted what they thought was a pile of clothes concealed by shrubs about five feet off a trail. When the boys returned to the park the next morning they soon realized what they had seen was a body. They ran home; one of their mothers called the Bellevue Police Department. <br /></span></em></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">by <a href="/taxonomy/term/26"> Gary Boynton </a></span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">A</span>t 11:30 a.m., Bellevue detectives responded to the scene, where they found the body of a young woman, dressed in blue jeans, a white T-shirt and "waffle-stomper" boots. Although she did not appear disheveled, as if she had been involved in a struggle, there was a cord wrapped around her neck, with which she obviously had been strangled.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">Identification on the body indicated that the victim was Kimberly Wilson, age 20, and that she lived only a few blocks from the park. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">After securing and processing the crime scene, Det. Jeff Gomes, an investigator from the King County Medical Examiner's Office, and Senior Prosecutor Patti Eakes proceeded to the victim's home. Gomes, although he'd been a cop for 23 years, was dreading informing Wilson's family of her death as he knocked on the front door of the white, two-story, wood-frame house. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">Even though there were three cars parked in front, and the outside Christmas lights were on, the inside of the house appeared dark. When no one answered, Gomes went to a sliding-glass door on the side of the house. Finding it unlocked, he opened it, leaned into the house and called out. Again receiving no reply, Gomes drew his gun and stepped inside.</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">What he found upstairs was unlike anything the veteran detective had ever seen. Blood was spattered on walls and ceilings. In the master bedroom, the body of a middle-aged woman was lying in her bed, where she evidently had been attacked. Her head had been crushed by repeated blows from a heavy, blunt object, and her throat had through-and-through stab wounds. Near the foot of another bed in the same room, lay the body of a middle-aged man. Heavy blows, too, had crushed his skull, and he, too, had suffered numerous penetrating stab wounds to the face, neck, and head.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">Just down the hall, in another bedroom, lay the body of a teenage girl. Unlike the other two victims, she had apparently been able to struggle against her attacker. She had defensive injuries to her hands (stabbing and slashing wounds) and her arms (bone broken by blunt impact). She, too, had been beaten repeatedly in the face and head, and her throat and head bore numerous stab wounds.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">Interviews with neighbors soon identified the victims as Kim Wilson's 17-year-old sister, Julia, and their parents, William and Rose Wilson. William worked as an accountant for a steel firm in nearby Kirkland, where he was reportedly well-liked by his co-workers and described by his boss as "eager, very loyal, a good employee." Rose worked as an accounting supervisor at the University of Washington Library, where colleagues described her as "friendly and outgoing."</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">Julia was a senior at Bellevue High School, where she was recalled as "a sweet, shy young girl." She had a close circle of friends and was said to have been excited about her recent acceptance to Central Washington University. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">Kimberly, who had graduated from the same high school in 1995, was described as having a "strong-willed, independent streak, marching to the beat of a different drummer." She had joined AmeriCorps, President Clinton's national service program, and had recently been in San Diego for basic training, before coming home for the holidays.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">According to a high school counselor, Kimberly had her share of typical teenager-parent clashes. "There was tension in the household during her last couple of years in high school," the counselor said. In fact, Bellevue Police had been called to the Wilson home less than a week before, Dec. 28, 1996, on a domestic disturbance call, stemming from a dispute between Kimberly and her parents.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">The Woodbridge neighborhood was terrified by the grisly murders, especially because the police did not have any motive or any suspects. Autopsies revealed that Kimberly had indeed been strangled with the rope found around her neck. She had also been kicked or stomped on with enough force to break three of her ribs and to injure her kidneys and spleen. There was no evidence of sexual assault.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">William, Rose, and Julia Wilson had all been stabbed in the neck and beaten on their heads. No weapons were found in the house or yard.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">As detectives continued to interview family, friends and acquaintances of the Wilson family, they learned that some of Kimberly's friends were into the "Gothic" lifestyle, which focuses on gloom and death. Goths dress in dark clothing and wear dark makeup and many of them are into role-playing games in which they pretend to be vampires, ghosts, witches, or fallen angels. For many, it is just innocent fun, but for others, particularly those with mental or emotional problems, the Gothic obsession with the dark side of life can lead to suicide or even murder.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">Although Kimberly Wilson was not a Goth herself, several of her friends were part of such a group who liked to hang out late at night at the Denny's Restaurant in Bellevue's Eastgate neighborhood, not far from the Wilson family home. This "Saturday Night Denny's Club" liked to talk about role-playing games and their underlying themes of eroticism and death. For most of them, it was a fun way to rebel and establish their identities, but a few of these Goths and Goth-wannabes seemed to take things a lot more seriously.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">Detectives learned that two fringe members of the "Saturday Night Denny's Club," Alex Baranyi and his best friend, David Anderson, both 17, had often talked about committing murder. Their friends just sloughed it off as idle ravings.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">Investigators contacted Baranyi and Anderson at their residences. Both youths claimed to have been together playing video games at Baranyi's home all night long on the night of the murders. Because the police were looking for a distinctive shoe-tread pattern discovered at the scene, each was questioned about their shoes. Baranyi showed the detectives a pair of brown work boots, which he claimed were his only pair of shoes.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">Detectives sought to confirm the statements of Baranyi and Anderson. They learned that witnesses at the home where Baranyi lived disputed their claims that they stayed home on the night of the murder. Police also learned from another friend of Baranyi's that Baranyi had a pair of boots with tread similar to the one that had left a blood impression at the crime scene. Bloody footprints found in the Wilson residence indicated there were at least two individuals involved in the murders.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">Detectives again spoke with Baranyi five days after the murder. After he was advised of his Miranda rights, acknowledged that he understood them, and waved them, he told the detectives that he and an accomplice, whom he refused to name, murdered all of the Wilsons.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">According to Baranyi, he first strangled Kimberly to death in the park. Then, he said, he realized that she might have told her family that she was intending to meet him that night, so he decided to kill them. He went to her house with a baseball bat and a combat knife. Once inside, he entered the parents' bedroom and beat the sleeping Rose Wilson with the bat. William Wilson woke up and attempted to intercede, but Baranyi stabbed and beat him to death, before finishing Mrs. Wilson off with his knife. He then went down the hall and did the same to Julia. Before leaving the house, he took a telephone, a CD player and a VCR. He then returned home.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">Later in the interview, Baranyi acknowledged that he did not act alone. He said that he had an accomplice who beat Kimberly Wilson while he strangled her, and who accompanied him to the Wilson residence to kill her family. He steadfastly refused to name his accomplice, but did tell the detectives that David Anderson was the only person he had ever really liked.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">Baranyi told detectives that he had been planning to murder someone for over a year, because he was "in a rut" and felt that he was becoming "decadent."</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">Baranyi's confession contained numerous details about the crime scene and the manner of the victims' deaths that could only have been known by the murderers. For example, he described in detail the way in which the ligature around Kimberly's neck had been tied, and the location of each body in the Wilson house.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">The night after Baranyi's confession, detectives re-interviewed Anderson. After waiving his rights, Anderson claimed that he had lied to the detectives when he earlier told them that he was with Baranyi at the time of the murders. He now claimed that he had not remained at Baranyi's residence on the night of Jan. 3 and the morning of Jan. 4. Instead, he said, he spent the night driving alone in a truck that belonged to his girlfriend's father. He said that he spent hours driving aimlessly around the freeways between Seattle and Bellevue.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">Anderson told detectives that he knew that Baranyi had been planning to murder the Wilsons. He also said that Baranyi had no relationship with Kimberly, and, as far as he knew, had never been to her house. Anderson said the only thing that Kim and Baranyi had in common was that they were both friends of his. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">The three people who lived in the same house as Baranyi contradicted Anderson's version of events. According to these witnesses, they saw Baranyi and Anderson leave that residence together at approximately 10:30 p.m. on Jan. 3. According to one of these witnesses, Baranyi was carrying something long in the sleeve of his trench coat. She said that she had remained awake until 3 a.m. the next morning and that neither Baranyi nor Anderson returned to the house during that time. But, another witness described seeing the pair, dressed completely in black, returning to the residence at around 3:30 a.m. on the morning of Jan. 4.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">According to the three housemates, when Baranyi and Anderson left the residence on the night of the murders, they drove off in a small, black pickup truck with a canopy on the back. This description matched the truck that Anderson claimed to have driven around in that night.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">Anderson's girlfriend confirmed that Anderson had her father's truck during that period of time. But she said that Anderson had told her he had simply sat in a park in the truck that night and early morning, and she noticed that very little gas had been used in the truck during that time. A distance of approximately eight blocks separates the park where Kimberly's body was found from the house where her family was murdered.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">During their interviews with Baranyi and Anderson, detectives obtained written permission to search their residences. The search of Baranyi's house produced the Wilson's telephone, CD player and VCR. Human blood was found on the VCR; DNA tests confirmed that it matched William Wilson's genetic profile. Baranyi's fingerprint was found on the CD player.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">Police also recovered a pair of bloody shoelaces from a trashcan in Baranyi's bedroom. DNA tests revealed that the blood on the shoelaces was consistent with William Wilson's.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">At Anderson's residence, police seized a pair of brown-and-black boots from his bedroom. Anderson's girlfriend, who was living with him, and his brothers confirmed that the boots belonged to Anderson. Numerous bloodstains were found on the boots. DNA tests were performed and the blood was determined to display the genetic profiles of both William and Julia Wilson. Experts determined that some of the stains were consistent with Anderson having been within several feet of Julia when her blood spattered on the boots.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">During their investigation, detectives interviewed numerous acquaintances of Baranyi and Anderson. They learned the two were close friends. Many witnesses described them as inseparable and said that Anderson appeared to be Baranyi's only friend. They shared a common interest in the Gothic lifestyle, dressing in all black clothing, sometimes with black trench coats. A neighbor jokingly referred to them as "The Blues Brothers." The two of them enjoyed playing Dungeons and Dragons and other role-playing games, and had a mutual interest in swords and knives.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">Friends said that Baranyi wore his hair in a ponytail to emulate the star of the "Highlander" television show, which features a sword-wielding superhero. Witnesses said that Baranyi, whom they described variously as quiet, weird, or antisocial, had dropped out of Bellevue's alternative high school a couple months before the murders and was known to hang around Bellevue High School, where Anderson and Julia Wilson were students during that time. It was also learned that Baranyi had been kicked out of a couple of role-playing groups for carrying the games too far.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">Acquaintances of the suspects also told detectives that Baranyi and Anderson had been discussing a plan to kill the Wilsons for more than a year. According to one witness, he had a conversation with Anderson in late 1995 during which Anderson discussed a plan to kill the Wilsons and showed him a bat and knives that would be the murder weapons. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">According to another witness, Baranyi and Anderson had compiled a "hit list" of potential murder victims. This list included Kimberly Wilson.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">Detectives also learned from a friend of Kimberly that Kimberly had become aware of Anderson's plan to commit a murder. Kimberly spoke with her friend about this plan and said that she intended to confront Anderson and attempt to dissuade him from pursuing it further.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">A number of witnesses told detectives that the two suspects owned a collection of knives and swords. Several acquaintances described seeing Anderson, before the murders, with a large, fixed-blade knife with "brass knuckles" on its handle. Despite repeated searches of both suspects' residences, this knife was never found.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">Detectives impounded the truck that Anderson admitted was in his possession on the night of the murders. In it were a cut part of a black T-shirt, with the sleeves, and a piece of rope. A similar portion of a cut T-shirt had been recovered from Julia's bedroom. Baranyi told detectives that he had fashioned headgear from a black T-shirt, which he wore into the Wilson house, and which, he said, he had lost there. The rope found in the truck was indistinguishable from that used to strangle Kimberly.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">A pair of wool socks was also found in the truck. The owner of the truck told detectives that he usually kept several extra socks in the truck. Baranyi told investigators that he wore socks on his hands during the murders in the Wilson residence.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">Criminalists from the Washington State Patrol Crime Laboratory found blood on the passenger compartment floor mat of the truck. Although they were able to confirm that it was blood using a presumptive test, further DNA tests were unsuccessful in matching it to any particular person or persons.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">During his interview with detectives, Anderson stated that he had not seen or spoken with Kimberly for almost a year. However, police discovered that Anderson's pager number was written on small piece of paper in her bedroom. They also found a promissory note, signed by Anderson and dated June 1996. The note promised that Kimberly would be paid $500 by September 1996. This money was apparently a debt incurred by Anderson during the course of the previous two years. Anderson had told several people that he was angry that Kimberly insisted that he owed her money and was pursuing payment. He told at least one person that he was considering killing Kimberly because of this debt.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">Even though Baranyi continued to refuse to name his partner in the Wilson murders, prosecutors felt that they had enough physical and circumstantial evidence to convict Anderson along with him. Anderson was arrested, but continued to deny his involvement in the killings.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">Although both defendants were 17 at the time of the murders, they were charged with first-degree murder as adults. Prosecutors planned to try them together. The trial began in October 1998, but jury selection was soon halted when the Washington State Supreme Court made a ruling that made it easier for defendants to offer a diminished-mental-capacity defense. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">In light of the new ruling, Baranyi's attorneys re-filed a motion to allow the expert testimony of a San Diego-based psychologist, who had diagnosed Baranyi as suffering from bipolar disorder, also know as manic depression, which is characterized by moods alternating between extreme excitability and withdrawal.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">King County Superior Court Judge Michael Spearman ruled that under the new guidelines, Baranyi was entitled to pursue a diminished-capacity defense, and that in order to do so fairly, he and Anderson should be tried separately. Spearman also ruled that Baranyi's confession was admissible, but that any references to an accomplice must be edited out, in order not to prejudice the case against Anderson. Believing that such a redacted version would wrongly give jurors the impression that Baranyi committed the murders alone, prosecutors decided not to use the confession at all.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">Prosecutors resumed presenting their case against Baranyi, linking him with Anderson, whom they believed had instigated the plan to kill Kimberly.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">In order to link the two to the murders of Rose, William and Julia Wilson, they presented the testimony of medical examiners indicating that these victims were killed with a sword and a baseball bat, raising the possibility of more than one attacker.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">Numerous friends and acquaintances of Baranyi and Anderson testified that the two youths were best friends and that they frequently acted out Gothic fantasies by role-playing games such as "Dungeons and Dragons."</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">Other witnesses recalled how Baranyi and Anderson had often talked about their desire to commit murder with baseball bats and knives.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">To bolster the claim that Baranyi's mental capacity had been diminished by his bipolar disorder at the time of the murders, the defense put psychologist Karen Froming on the stand. Her testimony turned out to be among the most chilling of the trial.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">According to Dr. Froming, Baranyi had never felt better about himself and his prospects than he did at the time right before the killings. The day before the slayings, his boss at a Seattle construction company had complimented his work ethic and given him a raise. But just as it looked like his life was turning around, he got the word from his best friend, David Anderson, that "the plan" was on. The plan was to kill Kimberly Wilson.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">According to Froming, Baranyi had been in a deep depression for months and had told his mother that he was considering suicide. He had no plans for the future and found little personal satisfaction outside of work. During this period of despair, Baranyi became more and more emotionally dependent upon his only friend, David Anderson, for whom he would do anything.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">Froming testified that Baranyi told her that during the slayings he felt like "he was watching himself," and didn't think it was real. The psychologist speculated that Baranyi was incapable of differentiating between role-playing fantasies of swords and sorcerers and the actual killings. She also said that Baranyi had told her that Anderson had beaten William and Rose Wilson with an aluminum baseball bat, but that he himself had attacked Julia and strangled Kimberly.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">Baranyi's parents sat in the courtroom as Froming testified. His father fidgeted, while his mother worked quietly on her needlework, an embroidery of the 23rd Psalm.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">Three weeks after the trial began, the jury quickly found Alex Baranyi guilty of all four counts of aggravated first-degree murder. Baranyi swallowed hard when the verdicts were announced, but otherwise showed no reaction.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">Two months later, Baranyi was sentenced to four consecutive life terms, without possibility of parole. Relatives of the Wilson family, who had sat through all the trial, sat quietly in the courtroom as Judge Spearman announced the life sentences.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">When asked if he had anything to say, Baranyi replied, "No, I don't think so."</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">One week after Baranyi was put away for life, Anderson went on trial for his part in the murders. Prosecutors painted a picture of a charming, manipulative young man, bent on revenge.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">According to Deputy Prosecutor Patti Eakes, Kimberly Wilson had once had a crush on Anderson, even though he was three years younger. She thought he was cute and fun. Anderson, according to Eakes, thought that Kimberly was awkward, unattractive and lucky to know him, but he did let her associate with him and was not above borrowing money from her.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">Eakes told the jury that Anderson was outraged when Kimberly insisted that he repay her the money she had loaned him. "He was furious that she asked him to pay this money and he was filled with hate. He not only wanted to destroy her, but wanted to destroy everything associated with her. He wanted to destroy her entire family."</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">Although much of the case against Anderson paralleled the case against Baranyi, there were significant differences. Baranyi had confessed to the murders and discussed them in detail with Dr. Froming, whereas Anderson still denied any involvement in the killings, blaming them all on Baranyi. This made it necessary for the prosecution to rely more on physical evidence.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">Four days into the trial, Anderson requested a new lawyer. He claimed that his attorney, Michael Kolker, was not providing a good defense and was ignoring his client's suggestions about how to cross-examine witnesses. Judge Spearman denied Anderson's request for new council.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">More than a month into the trial, a juror was dismissed for making the comment, "He's guilty" in jest to a fellow juror.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">Several new witnesses testified against Anderson. A fellow inmate claimed that Anderson had confessed to him that he killed Kimberly and had been present when a friend killed her family. Even more damning, a friend of Anderson's testified that Anderson had invited him to join in the murder plot, even showing him knives and baseball bats and later saying, "We're going to take the Wilsons out."</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">An ex-girlfriend of Anderson's testified that he had always had "a marked fascination with knives," often carrying a combat knife in a nylon shoulder sheath under his clothes. He had also told her that a baseball bat would make a good weapon.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">The defense presented Anderson's former high-school sweetheart. She defended him, portraying his behavior as normal and not at all alarming to her. She told the jury that she liked knives, too, and that she and Anderson often went to a knife shop together to look at the merchandise,</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">Forensic scientist Kim Duddy testified that there were more than 100 bloody footprints found in the Wilson home. Although police had confiscated a pair of blood-spattered boots from Anderson's house, Duddy had to admit under cross-examination that she was not able to match them to any of the footprints.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">Despite all the damaging testimony against Anderson, one juror held out against conviction, resulting in a hung jury. Prosecutors would have to retry the case.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">Anderson fired his lawyers and faced his second murder trial with a new defense team more to his liking. It began almost a year to the day after proceedings had first begun against him and Baranyi. For the most part, the second trial was a carbon copy of the first, with one notable exception. Rather than trying to pin the murders exclusively on Baranyi, Anderson's lawyers now claimed that there had been a second person involved, but it was not Anderson.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">The jury had no great difficulty reaching a verdict this time, deciding in six hours that Anderson was guilty on all four counts of aggravated first-degree murder. As the verdict was read, Anderson sat straight-backed and expressionless. His parents wept. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">Like Baranyi, Anderson was sentenced to four consecutive life terms, without possibility of parole.</span></p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-5 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Topics:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/topics/murder" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Murder</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-3 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Authors:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/authors/gary-boynton" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Gary Boynton</a></div></div></div>Wed, 14 Oct 2009 08:02:34 +0000admin199 at http://www.crimemagazine.comhttp://www.crimemagazine.com/gothic-murders-0#comments